When the armour comes off
by Jadzia Bear
Summary: When Special Agent Spencer Reid rescues S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Darcy Lewis from the clutches of a serial killer, things don't quite go according to plan. The two get to know each other while spending the night holed up in a S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house. (Fluff, with just a hint of angst.)


**AN:** Don't worry, this is basically just a fluff fest, I promise. Also, I've only seen about half the seasons of Criminal Minds so please forgive me for any inconsistencies with canon when it comes to Spencer. As for Darcy, all inconsistencies are totally intentional ;)

* * *

Reid bursts out of the unsub's shed and hurtles through the sparse, frozen woodland after the young, dark-haired woman. The crack of gunfire from the killer's rifle spurs them to full speed, every rock and tree root a treacherous obstacle beneath their heedless feet.

Reid grips his Smith & Wesson with both hands but keeps it pointed down as he runs. The arrest hadn't quite gone as planned, but his team is swarming the shed at this very moment and he's not about to risk hitting one of them by shooting back. With luck, they'll have the unsub under control any minute now.

There's nowhere to hide among the brittle, leafless trees, but the victim—the woman—darts from one scrap of cover to the next, charting a haphazard course across the cold, hard earth. He follows her as best he can, trying to keep his Kevlar between her and the building behind them.

A leap to the side jostles his cell phone in his pocket. He feels the loss of its comforting weight the instant before he hears it hit the ground.

His gait stutters and he's already reaching back for it when another gunshot cracks through the thin, winter air. His reptilian hindbrain takes control and there's nothing he can do to stop his legs from propelling him forward, away from the source of danger.

They keep running, dry, brown leaves and thin drifts of snow crushed thoughtlessly under their boots. They head for some wider tree trunks, then duck behind a large stump, then run some more.

Reid's lungs burn with fire and ice. His legs are longer than hers but endurance was never his strong suit and he's only just keeping up. He prays the girl is keeping track of where they're going because with all this zig-zagging he's starting to seriously doubt his ability to find their way back.

He hasn't heard a gunshot for a good while now and his whole body is begging him to stop.

"I think it's okay now," he calls to her between heaving breaths. She glances over her shoulder at him but doesn't slow down.

He tries again. "I know you're scared, but we have to stop running aimlessly."

Finally, blessedly, she slows to a walk. "Aimless?" she puffs, still striding ahead. "I totally have an aim. There's a S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house somewhere near here."

He forces himself to jog a few more steps until he's walking alongside her, every breath a plume of white vapour in the frigid air. "S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

To the tremendous relief of his burning leg muscles, she stops. "Darcy Lewis, S.H.I.E.L.D. division." She points to the stylized eagle insignia on her jacket and holds out a hand for him to shake. He does so, though out of reflex more than anything else. It's an absurd thing to do in the middle of the wilderness just moments after mutually running for your lives, but it's not like there had been time for introductions in the two seconds during which he'd cut the zip ties off her wrists and ankles and told her to _run,_ _now_.

Her fingers are ice-cold and he holds onto them a few moments longer in an unintentional attempt to impart some warmth. He can feel the jagged edges on her fingernails from where she fought against someone or tried to scratch her way free at some point in the last day or two. It's an odd kind of relief to observe this on a living hand instead of a dead one, as is so often the case.

"I've heard of S.H.I.E.L.D., but I don't really know what it is you guys do," he says, releasing her hand.

"Yeah, that's the way we like it." Her mouth twists in a tired imitation of a smirk and he wouldn't be surprised if sarcasm was her usual weapon of choice, when she's not worn down from being imprisoned overnight by a sociopath.

Darcy starts walking again, heading further away from the cabin and his team (at least, he thinks they're moving further away; he's so lost right now), though, in truth, it's less of a walk and more of a determined trudge.

"I'm just a junior communications analyst, though!" She throws her hands up for emphasis, a shrill edge brightening her words. "I kept telling him I didn't know anything useful, I don't have the clearance, but he didn't even ask me any questions. What was _that_ about?"

Reid holsters his revolver and hurries to catch up with her. "He didn't kidnap you for information," he says, trying to be helpful. "He just chose you because you were in his geographic vicinity and had the same hair colour as his mother."

"What?!" She throws him a glare that's half baffled, half horrified. "How do you even _know_ that?"

Reid sticks out his hand. "Supervisory Special Agent Spencer Reid, Behavioural Analysis Unit." He doesn't bother mentioning the FBI part, seeing as it's already plastered across his chest.

Darcy stops dead in her tracks but doesn't shake his hand. After a long moment he returns it awkwardly to his side. It was a dumb thing to do anyway, who shakes hands twice?

Finally, she regains control of her gaping jaw. "The BAU? So that guy wasn't AIM, or Hydra, or anything?"

Spencer doesn't know what those things are, but now doesn't seem like the time to ask.

Her cheeks are rosy from exertion and cold, but behind them she's a shade closer to the white-grey drifts of shallow snow. "He was just a garden variety serial killer who was going to axe murder me for the fun of it? Jesus _fuck!"_ She resumes her tramping, jamming her bare hands under her armpits to keep them warm.

The watery afternoon light only grows weaker as the pale sun slides towards the horizon.

"Ms. Lewis, I know it can be hard to think straight after something like this, but it's getting dark. We need to turn around." He wants to put a hand on her arm to stop her, but he knows the protocol when dealing with victims of abduction. "The gunshots have stopped, which means my team has probably apprehended your kidnapper."

She doesn't stop, but she does slow to a more moderate pace. "One: call me Darcy. Two: I've thunk straight in conditions way worse than this, trust me. And three: what do you mean _probably_ apprehended? Can't you call or radio them and check?"

"I dropped my phone." Spencer suddenly feels pretty dumb for someone who just saved a person's life.

Darcy fetches a heavy sigh, which really doesn't help with the feeling dumb situation. "So, you want me to turn around and walk back towards the guy who was about to serially kill me, who may or may not still be on the loose?" She shakes her head. "Nuh-uh. I have no idea how to get back from here now anyway, do you?"

Reid looks back the way they've come, but the snow is too patchy and the ground too hard to have recorded more than the occasional footprint.

"Look." Darcy points to an almost indistinguishable but oddly symmetrical mark on a nearby tree. "If we keep heading this way, I know where we're going. If we stay here and your people don't find us, we'll freeze more than our tits off."

Spencer thinks back to the weather report he'd read before they'd headed out to the cabin. "Even if we fashioned some sort of shelter, I estimate the likelihood of developing hypothermia at over seventy percent."

Darcy blinks. "Thanks, Data." She turns and starts walking away. "I'm going to the safe house," she calls over her shoulder. "You're welcome to come."

He watches her go, dark hair flapping in time with her strides—for about three seconds—then he's hurrying after her yet again. He tells himself it's because he's not going to leave her out here on her own, but it's not lost on him that she's quite possibly saving _his_ life now.

* * *

The cold and the dark creep steadily closer as Darcy and Spencer make their way through the forest. The tip of Spencer's nose is numb, and his toes aren't faring much better.

"I wish I had my knitted hat," Darcy grumbles, inspecting the tiny mark on another tree as she follows some kind of secret trail.

The sun is below the horizon and Spencer's chest feels like it's about to seize up, if not from the cold then from anxiety—their odds of finding the place are plummeting the darker the forest becomes—when Darcy says, "Through here," and starts pushing her way into a thick stand of spindly trees.

They come out the other side to find themselves in front of a small, unassuming wooden cabin.

Darcy feels around the edges of the front door until she uncovers a small panel that takes her ocular scan—what the hell kind of department is this S.H.I.E.L.D.?—and the door unlocks with an audible click.

Darcy falls gratefully inside, but Spencer is a little more cautious. He draws his gun, just in case, and follows her in.

The place smells of cedar and still air, and the decor is simple and welcoming. It's one large room except for the bathroom in the opposite corner. There's a basic kitchen in another corner, then a bed, a couch, and a few other bits of furniture. There's even a crocheted blanket over the back of the couch and a patchwork quilt on the bed, though the rustic illusion is kind of shattered when the heat kicks in, apparently activated by their mere presence. Spencer's not complaining, though.

He checks the place over and holsters his weapon. Meanwhile, Darcy makes a beeline for the kitchen. The third cupboard she opens reveals a huge selection of what appear to be silver ration packs. She grabs one at random, tears the corner off with her teeth and squirts the paste straight into her mouth.

"The lab reports on the killer's previous victims indicated they'd had access to water but no food in the days prior their deaths," Spencer says.

Darcy shudders and shoots a glare at him. "The reports were right."

Spencer cringes at his clinical choice of words; he could have just asked if she was dehydrated. Instead, he had to go and remind her of just how close she'd come to a grisly death. Not sure what else to do, he gets them both a glass of water, anyway.

As she holds the silver packet to her lips, he notices the abrasions on her wrists where the zip ties had been. The skin is raw but there's only a small amount of dried blood. Evidently, she'd kept her head well enough to know that struggling against the ties would only harm her, not help her.

"Any injuries other than your wrists?" he asks. He probably should have thought to check sooner, but the unsub had typically used the threat of a gun to manipulate his victims, not physical force, so it was unlikely.

Darcy looks at her wrists like she'd forgotten the marks were there and shakes her head. She has one last suck on the empty packet, then tosses it onto the counter and reaches for a second one.

"There's a phone in there," she says, nodding towards one of the cupboards, "if you want to call your people."

The communications panel hidden inside the cupboard looks like it's capable of far more than just phone calls, but even if most of the controls are beyond his understanding, he can recognise the handset and number pad, at least.

He calls Hotch and fills him in on their situation.

"Call off the search. Reid and the girl are safe," Hotch says to someone at the other end of the line. Then Spencer hears Garcia in the background fervently thanking several different deities, and feels a stab of guilt for what he's just put his friends through.

"What's your location? We'll come and get you," Hotch says to Spencer.

"Um, hold on."

After getting Darcy's help with the fancy phone he's able to give Hotch their GPS coordinates, but he also confirms that there's no point in anyone trying to locate them before morning.

"This place is pretty hard to find and it looks like there's no way to get here by road." He's already feeling bad enough about people walking around in the cold and the dark looking for him. "We have everything we need here. The smartest thing to do is wait until daylight."

"All right," Hotch agrees. "We'll co-ordinate pick-up in the morning."

"Hey, Hotch, you caught him, right?" Spencer asks, gaze cutting towards Darcy.

"We got him," Hotch confirms.

"Good," Spencer says, giving Darcy a small smile.

"Good," she mutters. There's a vindictive heat to the word, but Spencer doesn't miss the way her lip trembles with the smallest whisper of vulnerability.

He ends the call and Darcy takes the cordless handset from him so she can make a call of her own.

"Hey, Jane. It's Darcy."

Spencer can hear the chipmunk-like tirade of a woman on the other end of the line.

"Yeah, no, I'm fine, pretty much," she assures Jane, propping the phone between her ear and her shoulder and hopping up onto the counter. She leaves the phone nestled there and starts rolling up the second ration pack from the bottom in order to squeeze out the last of its contents.

There is nowhere inside the cabin he can go where he won't be able to hear her, but he turns his back and wanders away in an attempt to give her at least the illusion of privacy.

The cabin is warming up nicely so he shrugs out of his jacket and removes his Kevlar vest as Darcy paints her friend a broad-strokes picture of the last twenty-four hours. While she bristles with indignation at her treatment, it's all through the veneer of sarcasm and dry humour.

"—and then the asshole drives me out to bumfuck nowhere and leaves me trussed up like a goddamn turkey all day—"

She's using flippancy like armour, a buffer between herself and the true depth of her emotional responses, but at some point that armour will have to come off if she's going to properly process the ordeal.

Spencer takes a seat on the couch and the conversation soon moves on to Darcy's current situation. He is almost finished calculating the number of stitches in the crocheted blanket when he realises Darcy is describing him to the woman on the phone.

"Yeah, he's hot, in a heroin chic meets chess club kind of way," she says, throwing him a conspiratorial wink. Spencer swallows and refuses to blush.

Not long after that, she ends the call and slides down off the counter. She dips her nose towards her armpit and sniffs experimentally.

"Ugh, I stink." She heads towards the bathroom. "If anyone needs me, I'll be setting a world record for the longest, hottest shower."

She doesn't smell, but he knows that feeling of wanting to scrub the memories from your skin. He'd had it after the incident with Hankel. It doesn't work, but he says nothing, just smiles politely and gives a little nod.

She stops at a closet near the bed and rummages through piles of neatly folded black and grey sweats until she finds what she's looking for. When she gets to the bathroom she puts a hand on the door jamb and stops, looking back over her shoulder at him.

"Honey, could you get dinner started?" she asks, a glint of humour in her eye. "I had _such_ a rough day at the office."

His response is immediate, because apparently spending so much time around Garcia means he's now fluent in sass. "Will do, dear."

Darcy smiles, impressed—she must not have expected him to play along—and disappears into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Being called 'honey', even in jest, ignites a small warmth in his stomach, and her genuine smile and pretty eyes only serve to fan the tiny flame.

It makes sense, he supposes (he's a heterosexual male; she's very attractive), but the dispassionate veil though which he usually views victims and abductees is thinning where Darcy is concerned.

He looks through the various canned and frozen goods on offer and by the time Darcy exits the bathroom he's got a beef stew bubbling away on the stove.

Her dark hair, now damp, falls in smaller waves than it did before. She's wearing a black v-neck top and yoga pants, both with that same stylized eagle logo from her jacket. The shape of her breasts is more natural than before, softer in the absence of a bra.

"Smells good," she comments.

"Food is still a few minutes off," he says, muscling his gaze back to the pot of stew and giving it another stir. "I found the first-aid kit. I can put a dressing on your wrists, now, if you'd like."

She looks at them and presses the tender flesh gingerly with one fingertip. "Yeah, okay."

She sits down at the small, round table where he put the first-aid kit, laying both arms down flat on the tabletop. He takes the seat beside her.

"They stung like a mother in the shower," she says, and he's not surprised. The dried blood has been washed away and the abraded skin looks clean, so he starts by putting on gloves and dabbing antiseptic cream along the angry, red lines. Air hisses through her teeth from the sting of it.

"Sorry," he winces, trying to be as gentle as possible.

"Lucky for you, saving my life earned you no small amount of brownie points," she quips, "so I'm prepared to let it slide."

He puts the cap back on the tube of cream and takes out a roll of gauze.

"Thanks for that, by the way." She looks at him through thick, dark lashes, her voice is a little quieter than before.

He slips his hand under hers, palm to palm, and lifts, leaving her elbow on the table and giving him better access to apply the dressing. "I'm just glad we got there in time," he says, matching her lowered volume.

He wraps the gauze around her wrist and secures it with a knot. Neither one of them speaks as he finishes off the other arm.

The silence swells like a bubble and Spencer is aware of every place they touch. His skin prickles with a rush of awkwardness worthy of a love-struck teenager. His limbs feel too long and his mouth too dry. He busies himself with clearing away the first-aid supplies while she dishes out two bowls of stew, and they reconvene at the table.

The meal tastes surprisingly good for something that's been in storage for god knows how long, though Darcy realises pretty quickly that, although she's technically got four meals to catch up on, the rations she mainlined the moment she got in the door have mostly hit the spot. Still, there's something comforting about a hot, tasty meal on a cold night, and comforting is definitely what she needs right now.

They eat in silence, which Darcy has no problem with, but poor Spencer is looking more uncomfortable with each passing minute. He awkwardly breaks off eye contact any time she looks at him, and he seems to be having no end of trouble arranging his long legs under the small table. She wonders how many times he's been out to dinner with a girl, not that a safe house in the snow qualifies as 'out'.

Fortunately for Spencer, Darcy is a great conversationalist—albeit a little direct, at times.

"Okay, FBI," she says, eyeing him thoughtfully, "let's see if we can't find some common ground here. Seen any movies lately?"

The only movie he's seen in ages is that latest one with Edward James Olmos, but that leads them to the discovery that they're both fans of Battlestar Galactica, and before long, they're digging deep into the show's themes.

The next time they lapse into silence, it's just a natural lull in the conversation, and Spencer takes the opportunity to get back to his stew, his restless legs long forgotten.

This isn't so bad. If she can't be at home curled up under a blanket and distracting herself with Disney movies, this is an acceptable alternative. She's always up for making a new friend, and Spencer is sweet, and kind, and cute as hell. He's kind of mesmerising to watch, too, with his delightfully unruly hair and the way his eyes light up when he talks about things that interest him.

It's not like she's feeling especially traumatised (getting kidnapped is nothing compared to the surreal insanity of seeing creatures from another realm descend on London), but still, a brush with death is a brush with death, and she'd much prefer it if she could just stop thinking about the flat, dead eyes of the guy who took her, or how her heart had thumped like a rabbit's all night long, waiting for the torture and interrogation she'd thought were imminent, or how _trapped_ she'd felt with the zip ties on—

" _Darcy."_

Her spoon clinks sharply against the edge of the bowl as she snaps out of the whirlpool of dark memories. She looks expectantly at Spencer.

"Who's your, uh...who's your favourite cylon?"

He's clearly improvising. He must have seen her getting lost in her own unpleasant thoughts and pulled her out of it on purpose.

"That," she says, pointing her spoon at him, "is not an easy question to answer."

After they get that topic settled, they move on to a dissection of the merits and failings of season four, which takes them to the end of the meal.

He offers to take care of the kitchen clean-up and Darcy doesn't fight him on it, but she's not quite done with her critique of the series finale so she hangs around the sink while he works and ends up wiping a few dishes anyway.

There's the odd moment where they step on each other's toes as they navigate the small space, but, for the most part, they do surprisingly well. Maybe she's taking advantage of him, the way she puts a light hand on his back to warn him there's a drawer open behind him, or the way she slaps his arm when he says things like 'Starbuck and Apollo would never have worked out in the long run anyway' but she needs a _hug_ , goddamnit, and she doesn't know how to ask Spencer for one without it being weird, so, for the moment, these small points of contact are the best she's going to get.

Darcy is trying to find where the bowls go and contemplating how many hours you need to know someone for before you're allowed to ask for a great big 'I nearly died' bear hug, when she makes a wondrous discovery.

"Oh, hey, cocoa!" She emerges from the cupboard with a triumphant smile and the container in hand. "You want some?"

"Sure," says Spencer, suspecting that he's fast approaching the point where he would have trouble saying no to anything she might suggest.

They make their hot cocoas and gravitate towards the loveseat. Darcy picks up the remote and gets the TV working, settling on some reality cooking show he is unfamiliar with.

When they first sit down, there's a good few inches of couch cushion between them, but by halfway through the show Darcy has one leg tucked beneath her and her toes have wiggled their way underneath his thigh. Spencer is entirely unsure how to parse this, but she's acting like it's no big deal so he does the same, even though his skin never stops tingling at her touch.

A few times during the show he notices her drifting off again like she did at dinner, her face set in a vague frown and her gaze unfocussed as her brain drags up more memories of her recent trauma. He breaks her out of it each time with some random comment or question, but he's running out of things to say and she's clearly cottoned on to what he's doing, so by the final time he simply puts a hand on her arm and squeezes gently. She stirs, takes a deep breath and gives him a small, grateful smile in return.

While the TV show isn't nearly as mind-numbing as Spencer had anticipated, that doesn't change the fact that he's had a long, unusual day and it's starting to catch up with him. His mouth stretches wide with a yawn and he covers it with his hand.

"I think I'll have a shower," he says, pushing up off the couch as the credits role. His leg muscles protest, still sore from the afternoon's unexpected sprint.

"'Kay." Darcy stretches her legs out into the warm spot he just vacated, already channel surfing for something else.

He goes to the closet she opened earlier and selects some spare clothes for himself—a grey t-shirt and black sweatpants—and disappears into the bathroom. The hot water feels good on his aching muscles, though the soothing sensation only makes him that much sleepier.

By the time he comes out again, the cabin is dark except for one of the bedside lamps. Darcy is now a lump under the covers on the side of the bed furthest from the light. She's facing away from him so he can't tell if she's asleep yet, but he pads past quietly just in case.

She must be exhausted. He hopes for her sake that the intrusive thoughts stay away long enough for her to get the sleep she needs.

He heads dutifully for the couch, already eyeing which cushion he's going to use as a pillow. The temperature inside the cabin is quite reasonable, so the crocheted blanket should be enough to keep him warm. If only he wasn't a good two feet too long for the loveseat, it might actually be a comfortable night's sleep.

"I hope you're not thinking of sleeping on the couch."

Spencer freezes like a deer in headlights. When he doesn't respond, Darcy turns over to look at him.

"Are you offering to share the bed?" he asks, cursing his voice for breaking on the last word.

"Get your skinny ass over here," she says, matter-of-factly, flipping down the covers on the other side of the bed, then rolling back to face the wall. "I'm not going to molest you," she says over her shoulder. "Probably. Actually, I can't make any promises at all in that department, I'm kind of an octopus in bed, but your legs are way too long for that thing and... and just get in, okay?"

The last part is plaintive, almost pleading.

Even as his heart squeezes with empathy, his brain goes into profiling mode. What does she need right now? (What had he needed after he'd been kidnapped?) To feel safe, to know that she's not alone, that he's got her back—in this case, quite literally.

He crosses to the bed and slides in between the cool, crisp sheets. He turns off the lamp, leaving the cabin in darkness except for a few tiny, red standby lights and the milky wash of pale moonlight coming in around the edges of the curtains.

He lies down on his back and folds his hands over his stomach. When he closes his eyes it only serves to amplify the thudding of his pulse in his ears. He's not falling asleep anytime soon.

Strange beds aren't a problem, he's slept in hotels all over the country, but the presence of a bedfellow is something he's had only minimal experience with. He focuses on slowing his breathing, counting each breath as he goes.

He's up to 86 when he hears a small sniff from Darcy's side of the bed. At 89 he hears another, and there's something about it that makes him think she's crying.

"Darcy? You okay?" he asks quietly.

He hears the rustle of hair against the pillowcase as she turns her head towards him. "Um, Spencer, I know this is weird, but could you be my big spoon?"

It takes him a beat to process the fact that her request has nothing to do with cutlery.

"Yeah, sure," he says, like it's not weird at all.

He turns towards her and shuffles closer. She lifts her head so he can slip his arm beneath it, then scoots back the last couple of inches until she's pressed flush against him from chest to ankles. She sighs with contentment, and he very nearly does the same.

For the most part he's at peace with his single lifestyle, but _this_ —this is intoxicating. His entire being feels like warm honey, golden and melting and glowing from within. He drinks in the feel of her, trying to memorise the sensation of so many touch receptors being set off at once.

She wipes away her tears, then reaches back to find his hand and press it to her stomach, keeping her own fingers over the top.

"Why do I keep thinking about it? I'm safe now, why do I keep dwelling on it?" she mutters, sounding frustrated with herself.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks, keeping his voice low since his mouth really isn't that far from her ear.

"I don't know. No. Yes. Do you want to hear it?" she asks dubiously.

"It's my job, I hear this sort of thing all the time, and sharing your experience is an important aspect of dealing with trauma," he says.

"Okay." She takes a deep breath, and finally the armour falls away. What follows is more of a random assemblage of thoughts and feelings than it is a coherent account of the event, but he listens, and validates her emotions, and lets her know that her reactions are perfectly normal. She only reaches for the tissues on the bedside table once, about halfway through. She finishes as she began, with a deep sigh, and pressed back against him as close as she can get. "Getting kidnapped sucks," she concludes.

"I know," he murmurs, hugging his arm around her a little more tightly.

"What do you mean you know?" she asked.

"I was kidnapped once by an unsub while we were working a case."

He doesn't tell her everything that happened with Tobias Hankel, but he shares enough to help her feel less alone in her own experience. It was several years ago now, and he's done a lot of work to move past it, but it still stirs things up to talk about it.

She turns over in the circle of his arms and hugs him. "That's horrible, Spencer. I'm so sorry."

It shouldn't mean so much to hear her say that, but it does. Maybe what he needed all along was to connect with someone who'd been through something similar.

"It's okay," he says. A strand of long, dark hair tickles his cheek so he brushes it back behind her ear with careful fingers. Then he decides that stroking her hair just a little wouldn't be completely inappropriate considering the circumstances. "It's okay," he says again, smoothing his hand over silky locks. "We're both going to be okay."

She squeezes him a little tighter, then pulls back just enough that they're nose to nose.

Spencer can't explain why he's so sure she's about to kiss him. He should be able to conjure some sort of explanation involving respiratory rates and degree of pupil dilation, but all he knows right now is that the air between them feels hotter to his skin than it really is.

When her lips touch his, it's that honey-warm glow all over again. There are no words to describe the softness of her lips—'velvety' or 'pillowed' or any other word he can think of falls woefully short.

The kiss is slow and sweet and Spencer is doing little more than trying not to drown in the heady swirl of sensation when Darcy starts to taper it off.

Not wanting her to think he's not interested—and not wanting it to end—he kisses her back. He rests a light finger on her jaw as he reciprocates, and even dares to flick the tip of his tongue at the seam of her lips.

This earns him a small hum of encouragement, and the gentle vibration of it through his own flesh is heavenly. She parts her lips and Spencer could swear his bones turn molten when his tongue encounters the heat of her mouth. He holds her close, sliding a hand up and down her back, wondering where all this is going.

Her feet tangle with his and her fingers twine round his neck. She's all softness and warmth and curves, so unfamiliar and yet so perfect.

They settle into a comfortable rhythm of sliding tongues and roaming hands. His fingers find their way into masses of silky hair, while hers slip beneath the hem of his shirt so her palms can stroke the planes of his torso, making his skin sing with the contact.

It's only when her thigh insinuates itself between both of his that he feels the need to come up for air.

His lips break away from hers. "Darcy..." He kisses her twice more before he manages to finish the question. "Where is this going?"

She stops chasing after his mouth and the hands on his skin slow, though they don't stop completely. "Oh yeah, we're in a bed. I guess this is kind of suggestive, huh? Sorry." Her fingertips wander up and down his spine. "First, I just wanted to hug you, and now I'm just enjoying kissing you. I'm not really the kind of girl to sleep with someone on a first date, especially when it's not even a date."

Perhaps there's a tiny part of Spencer that's disappointed she's not interested in sex, but most of him is relieved. "No, that's fine, that's perfect. I was..." he can feel his cheeks warming, "enjoying it, too."

Her mouth quirks with a smile. "Good. More?"

"Yes, please," he says, because he's nothing if not a dork, but Darcy doesn't seem to mind that about him.

She smirks shamelessly and pulls him in again. This time, he tries slipping his hands underneath her top, trailing his fingers across the impossibly soft skin of her stomach, side and back.

Eventually their hands and lips slow, and Darcy brings things to a close with a final kiss and a contented hum.

She scoots down just enough so she can tuck her head under his chin. "I think I could almost fall asleep now," she comments, lacing her fingers through his.

"I could tell you Battlestar Galactica factoids until you're tired enough to sleep," he offers, shifting just a little to fit more comfortably against her.

"It's not a question of being tired enough, but sure, shoot," she says, the last word almost getting swallowed by a yawn.

"In the original 1978 version of the show, the character of Starbuck was actually male," Spencer begins.

"I knew that already," Darcy murmurs sleepily against his chest.

"Well did you know that—"

She's asleep before he can even finish the sentence, and, despite the fact that Spencer isn't used to sharing a bed, his eyelids droop closed, too.

His job is often an unpredictable one, but the probability that today's arrest would lead to him sharing a bed with a beautiful girl...he's not sure even _he_ could do the math. But statistics don't seem quite so important when he can smell Darcy's hair and feel her breath on his collarbone.

He decides he'll do the calculations in the morning, and that's the last thought he has before he falls asleep, warmed inside and out by the woman in his arms.


End file.
